Wednesday, March 15
Weblog Post #8 - A Bronze Medal for TV Watchers
Isn't it weird that people are blaming bad promotion on the Winter Olympic poor ratings?
ESPN goon Steven A. Smith said that they did a horrible job promoting the events and they should be ashamed. He also said that he is not watching because they did not give him enough reason to (something along those lines).
Is that what it's come down to? Do we NEED commercials and successful ad campaigns for us to watch anything? I guess the spirit of the Olympics, the competition and sportsmanship is not enough anymore. We need a reason to watch.
So they did their best. They said Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller and Sasha Cohen will save the world. They branded them American heroes before they even stepped foot in a skate or ski boot. What came of that? Out of three only Cohen came away with a medal, a silver.
I am not trying to take away anything from the athletes themselves. They ARE the best of the best, but with the pressure of ad campaigns on their shoulders it might make it hard to do a triple lutz.
So when it was inevitable that the Olympics on TV was a bust, getting pounded by American Idol in ratings and lacking any interest by Americans, the media went to what works best...Controversy.
There was little feud between the speed skating team but you would have thought another civil war was coming, and that didn't even work.
How sad is it that a global tradition that pits the world's top athletes against each other in peace and sportsmanship needs to be served to us on a silver platter? How sad is it that we are bombarded with prematurely heralded athletic gods or news about meaningles bickering within U.S. team? It's too bad.
ESPN goon Steven A. Smith said that they did a horrible job promoting the events and they should be ashamed. He also said that he is not watching because they did not give him enough reason to (something along those lines).
Is that what it's come down to? Do we NEED commercials and successful ad campaigns for us to watch anything? I guess the spirit of the Olympics, the competition and sportsmanship is not enough anymore. We need a reason to watch.
So they did their best. They said Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller and Sasha Cohen will save the world. They branded them American heroes before they even stepped foot in a skate or ski boot. What came of that? Out of three only Cohen came away with a medal, a silver.
I am not trying to take away anything from the athletes themselves. They ARE the best of the best, but with the pressure of ad campaigns on their shoulders it might make it hard to do a triple lutz.
So when it was inevitable that the Olympics on TV was a bust, getting pounded by American Idol in ratings and lacking any interest by Americans, the media went to what works best...Controversy.There was little feud between the speed skating team but you would have thought another civil war was coming, and that didn't even work.
How sad is it that a global tradition that pits the world's top athletes against each other in peace and sportsmanship needs to be served to us on a silver platter? How sad is it that we are bombarded with prematurely heralded athletic gods or news about meaningles bickering within U.S. team? It's too bad.
# posted by Jonathan : 3:18 PM
